Ipswich Women aim to bounce back after loss

Head coach David Wright has urged Ipswich Town Women to put a "speed bump" loss behind them when they return to Portman Road on Saturday.

The team were bottom of Women's Super League 2 when Joe Sheehan stood down in January and Wright was put in charge for the rest of the season.

From that point, they went unbeaten in five games, climbing off the foot of the table in the process, before losing 2-0 to Nottingham Forest last weekend.

"From taking over, it's been an upward trajectory and it was never [going to] just keep going and going and everything's fine," Wright told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"We understand we're in an elite sport and we're up against good players so we were always going to come across a speed bump.

"We've reviewed it, we've learned from it, we'll put it in the past and concentrate on moving forward and keep turning the wheels like we have been doing."

Ipswich remain above bottom club Portsmouth on goal difference and will be up against another Hampshire side, Southampton, at Portman Road on Saturday (kick-off 12:30 GMT), where they have twice drawn crowds in excess of 10,000 in the past.

"It's the one I've been waiting for. I've been here a couple of times for press conferences and I've been itching to get out there," said forward Kit Graham, one of several January signings made by Town who have helped transform the team's fortunes on the pitch.

"It's a lovely stadium, the renovations are really nice and we're just excited to get a really big crowd and put on a show for the fans."

Graham, 30, who was brought in on loan from Tottenham, where she made 88 appearances including the 2024 Women's FA Cup final, was given the captain's armband against Forest.

"A change to the line-up gave me the opportunity to lead us out which was a nice feeling but we've got some good leaders in the team," she said.

"I feel I'm quite a vocal player anyway so not much changes in terms of that, it's just wearing an armband in my opinion but it's nice to be able to help some of the younger players."

With only one team going down, having two games in hand on Portsmouth is bonus, and Ipswich - who normally play home games at Colchester - are only one point behind Durham and Sheffield United in the two places immediately above them.

"We've done a good job so far. There's still a job to do - we've scraped some points back and are looking confident for the rest of the season," said Graham.

She is excited about the rapid growth in the women's game in recent years, having only turned professional at the age of 23 when she joined Spurs from Charlton.

"It can still go further which is exciting. I wish I was a little bit younger so I could be part of it," Graham added.

"There's so much there for young players now in terms of infrastructure and drive and ambition from clubs and if you get down and work hard, the sky's the limit.

"It's heading in the right direction, but you can't do everything at once. I think that's sometimes where teams fail. [You need] a gradual pace of introducing new things to a women's team, some teams are getting their own stadiums built, some are getting their own training centres built, which gives them a platform to showcase themselves and be their own entities."

Ben Haines, Ellen White and Jen Beattie are back for another season of the Women's Football Weekly podcast. New episodes drop every Tuesday on BBC Sounds, plus find interviews and extra content from the Women's Super League and beyond on the Women's Football Weekly feed